Trump's major legislative agenda will pass by May, Speaker Mike Johnson says

Wendy Benjaminson, Bloomberg News on Jan 5, 2025

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Speaker Mike Johnson vowed that an ambitious bill addressing a range of President-elect Donald Trump’s priorities will be voted out of the U.S. House in April, a tight schedule for his narrowly divided chamber.

In an interview on Fox News’ "Sunday Morning Futures," Johnson said Republicans would use what is known as the reconciliation process, which only requires a simple majority of 51 in the Senate. That means Republicans can pass the legislation without Democratic votes.

Johnson said the massive bill would address issues such as border security, including money for the mass deportations of undocumented immigrants; an extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts; raising or eliminating the federal debt ceiling; reducing federal regulations and “dismantling the deep state.”

“The reason we’re doing it that way is we won’t have to negotiate with Chuck Schumer and the Democrats on that,” Johnson said, referring to the Senate Democratic leader. An all-encompassing bill would be ready for Trump to sign “certainly by May” and perhaps the end of April.

Trump nearly derailed a spending bill that passed in December amid a looming government shutdown because it didn’t raise or eliminate the debt limit. Johnson defied Trump and passed the bill without it, angering some members, but suggested Sunday that would be a priority for the incoming House.

Republicans have been split on whether to put all of Trump’s early legislative priorities in one bill or divide them among two or more. Trump and his party have a limited time to get major legislation passed before the 2026 midterm elections put members of Congress in campaign mode.

“No one’s going to love every element of a large package like that but there’ll be enough elements in there to pull everyone along,” Johnson said. “They’ll be able to justify not getting all of their preferences on some of their big issues because there will be so many very important pieces to that one piece of legislation.”

GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, appearing on the same program, said he opposed trying to cram so many disparate elements into one bill and insisted that border security alone must be Congress’ first order of business.

“I will try to be a team player here, but I want to tell the American people that the number one job” is carrying out Trump’s border plan. “No way in hell Democrats are going to give us $100 billion for mass deportations.”

Graham, the incoming Senate Budget Committee chairman, said the House could “count me in” for cutting taxes — but not until border security is addressed.

Graham’s comments reflect beliefs held by Republicans in both chambers that one bill will be too cumbersome to get done in Johnson’s accelerated time frame.

Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, said on "Sunday Morning Futures" that he prefers “a two-step process, give President Trump the funds he needs to secure the border, protect this nation and then take our time on making sure that we don’t have a massive tax increase in 2026.”

Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are set to expire this year without legislative action.

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